May 31, 2001, Second Amendment newsletter

About once a month, Dave
Kopel produces a free e-mail Newsletter containing short
summaries and links to important new research and writing
involving the Second Amendment and firearms policy. The
newsletter also reports on Kopel's latest writing.

The content of this newsletter is produced by the Second
Amendment Project at the Independence Institute, a think
tank in Golden, Colorado. The newsletter is electronically
distributed by the
Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Washington. Thus,
the Second Amendment Foundation will be given your e-mail
address.

e. Not Quite a Million Moms. Low attendance at the MMM rallies,
and other observations on the politics of the gun and anti-gun
movements – including Fortune Magazine rating the NRA as the
most powerful lobby in Washington.http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel051501.shtml

Thank you for your letter of April 10, 2001 regarding my views on
the
Second Amendment. While I cannot comment on any pending litigation,
let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the original
intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of
individuals
to keep and bear firearms.

While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a
"collective" right of the States to maintain militias, I believe the
Amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise. Like
the First and Fourth Amendments, the Second Amendment protects the
rights of "the people," which the Supreme Court has noted is a term
of
art that should be interpreted throughout the Bill of Rights.
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990)
(plurality
opinion). Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual
rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the
text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the
Founding
Fathers. See, e.g., Federalist No. 46 (Madison); Federalist No. 29
(Hamilton); see also, Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia
Constitution,
1764 ("No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."; George
Mason at Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention
1788 ("I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people ...
To
disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave
them.").

This is not a novel position. In early decisions, the United States
Supreme Court routinely indicated that the right protected by the
Second Amendment applied to individuals. See, e.g., Logan v. United
States, 144 U.S. 263, 276 (1892); Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538
(1893); Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281-82 (1897); Maxwell
v.
Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 597 (1900). Justice Story embraced the same view
in
his influential Commentaries on the Constitution. See 3 J. Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution Sec. 1890, p. 746 (1833) It is the
view that was adopted by United States Attorney General Homer
Cummings
before Congress in testifying about the constitutionality of the
first
federal gun control statue, the Nation Firearms Act of 1934. See The
National Firearms Act of 1934: Hearings on H.R. 9066 Before the
House
Comm. on Ways and Means, 73rd Cong. 6, 13, 19 (1934). As recently as
1986, the United States Congress and President Ronald
Reagan explicitly adopted this view in the Firearms Owners'
Protection
Act. See Pub. L. No. 99-308, Sec. 1(b) (1986). Significantly, the
individual rights view is embraced by the preponderance of legal
scholarship on the subject, which, I note, includes articles by
academics on both ends of the political spectrum. See, e.g., William
Van Alstyne, 'The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms',
43
Duke L.J. 1236 (1994), Akhil Reed Amar, 'The Bill of Rights and the
Fourteenth Amendment,' 101 Yale L.J. 1193 (1992); Sanford Levinson,
'The Embarrassing Second Amendment,' 99 Yale L.J. 637(1989), Don
Kates,
'Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second
Amendment,'
82 Mich. L. Rev. 204 (1983).

In light of this vast body of evidence, I believe it is clear that
the
Constitution protects the private ownership of firearms for lawful
purposes.(1) As I was reminded during my confirmation hearing, some
hold a different view and would, in effect, read the Second
Amendment
out of the Constitution. I must respectfully disagree with this
view,
for when I was sworn as Attorney General of the United States, I
took
an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That responsibility
applies to all parts of the Constitution, including the Second
Amendment.

Thank you for your interest in this matter.

Sincerely,

(signed)

John Ashcroft
Attorney General
=========
(1) Of course, the individual rights view of the Second Amendment
does
not prohibit Congress from enacting laws restricting firearms
ownership
for compelling state interests, such as prohibiting firearms
ownership
by convicted felons, just as the First Amendment does not prohibit
shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater. As Samuel Adams
explained
at the Massachusetts ratifying convention, the proposed Constitution
should "never [be] construed ... to prevent the people of the United
States who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."
Reprinted in 2 B. Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary
History
675 (1971) (emphasis added).

This month's Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics report,
"The
Ethics of American Youth: Violence and Substance Abuse," received
considerable national media play. Stories about the report, based on
a
national survey of more than 15,000. teenagers, tended to focus on
three of its many findings:
that one in three students said they didn't feel safe at school;
that nearly two-thirds of high school boys said they could get a
gun;
and that a significant proportion of youths had on occasion brought
weapons to school. The connection to school shootings seemed
obvious:
deny teens access to firearms and schools will be safer.

Just one problem. As Michael Josephson, the institute's director,
told
the pro-gun publication Gun Week: "This (report) was never really
about
guns.***The kid at Santee (High School) took the gun out of a locked
box. He stole his father's key to get that gun. This is not a
question
of metal detectors. It is a question of character."

The real focus of the study, Josephson said, was not guns, but
issues
of personal responsibility and the way substance abuse, coupled with
a
lack of character development, can have deadly results. Angered that
some were using the report to push a gun-control agenda, Josephson
went
on to point out that his institute scrupulously avoids taking sides
on
politically charged issues such as abortion or gun control.

Less than two weeks later, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
released a major study showing a sharp drop in the number of gun-
related deaths and injuries between 1993 and 1998.. Fatalities were
down 29%,. non-fatal injuries by 47%. - this during the same time
frame
that the Justice Department recorded a 27%. decline in violent
crime.
And this CDC report follows one last July that showed a continuing,
significant drop in firearm-related death and injury to children and
teens in recent years.

We need to think about guns and gun control in different and more
complex ways. To do that, we need news outlets that are willing to
report firearms-related news more forthrightly than they have to
date.
A study last year by the Media Research Center. that surveyed major
Network TV coverage of gun-related issues between 1997 and 1999
found that more than half of the 653 stories aired were more
editorial
than reportorial in their content, and that more than nine out of 10
of these stories had an anti-gun perspective.

I'm a gun-owner. I hunt, I shoot recreationally and I appreciate the
defensive value of firearms. I also respect the reasons others have
for
not using firearms for any reason. But we can agree on this much:
Spin-doctoring the news won't stop school shootings and other
atrocities any faster than metal detectors will.

Like many Americans, gun-owners and gun control advocates alike, I
heaved A sigh of relief when the anniversaries of Waco, Oklahoma
City,
and Columbine came and went without major incident. Before those
dates
roll around again, we should start the kind of national conversation
we
really need have about our culture of violence, in which some people
–
especially teenage males - seem to lose their bearings, sometimes
with
disastrous results. But to do that, we need to get the story
straight.

Mary Zeiss Stange, who teaches at Skidmore College, is the co-author
of
Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America.

n. Gun charge veteran found hanged
May 16, 2001
The Guardian (England)
"A war veteran charged by police when he used a toy gun to scare off
a
gang was found hanged on the day of his first court appearance, it
emerged yesterday." http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/

o. Student removed from class because of drawings
St. Petersburg Times
May 11, 2001
"A fifth-grader was taken from Oldsmar Elementary School in
handcuffs
Wednesday after a teacher found drawings he had made of weapons,
school
officials said. "http://www.sptimes.com/News/051101/

r. New book by University of Hawaii Professor Rudy Rummel
Saving Lives, Enriching Life: Freedom as a Right And a Moral Good.
The book deals with the relationship of freedom to democide, war,
revolution, famine, and human development, and has an extensive
appendix providing a statistical proof of this relationship.

y. Historian wounded as theory backfires.
By ROGER FRANKLIN
15 April 2001
The Age (Australia)
"Early last year, a young and obscure history professor advanced a
fascinating theory: America's love affair with the gun is a
relatively
recent passion, and one that would have appalled the Founding
Fathers. Contrary to myth, few 19th century Americans owned a gun,
and
if they did, it was likely to be ancient or broken.
. . .
When his academic inquisitors asked him to settle their doubts by
opening his files, Bellesiles announced that he could not
accommodate
them - a recent flash flood had destroyed every single page of his
original research.
. . .
But if it is ever going to happen, Bellesiles' dubious scholarship
won't provide the foundation for some landmark decision by the
Supreme
Court."http://www.theage.com.au/news/

z. Their Aim Is True: Taking stock of America's real gun culture
By Abigail Kohn
Reason Magazine, May, 2001
"It was mid-September, 1998, the first day of Northern California's
Range War, a 'cowboy action shooting' competition in which
participants dress up in Old West costumes and use replicas of
antique weapons."http://reason.com/0105/fe.ak.their.html

cc. New book from an attorney who has used the Freedom of
Information
Act to uncover a vast amount of new evidence about Waco.
This Is Not An Assault: Penetrating the Web of Official Lies
Regarding
the Waco Incident.
by David T. Hardy with Rex Kimballhttp://www1.xlibris.com/bookstore/

Buy a copy from Laissez Faire Books, you'll help a great on-line
book
Vendor, and also help the Independence Institute.

Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime? Or
does
it cause more citizens to harm each other? Wherever people happen to
fall along the ideological spectrum, their answers are all too often
founded upon mere impressionistic and anecdotal evidence. In this
direct challenge to conventional wisdom, legal scholar John Lott
presents the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever done
on
crime. In this timely and provocative work he comes to a startling
conclusion: more guns mean less crime.

Thorough and enlightening, More Guns, Less Crime is required reading
for anyone interested in the sometimes contentious, always critical
American debate over gun control.

Make a donation to support Dave Kopel's work in defense of constitutional
rights and public safety.

Nothing written here is to be construed as
necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an
attempt to influence any election or legislative action. Please send
comments to Independence Institute, 727 East 16th Ave., Denver, Colorado 80203 Phone 303-279-6536. (email)webmngr @ i2i.org